


Inappropriate Uses of Company Time

by Kyra



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Co-workers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Kissing, Rare Pairings, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-15
Updated: 2006-07-15
Packaged: 2018-02-17 07:07:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2300825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyra/pseuds/Kyra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hating the same things brings people together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inappropriate Uses of Company Time

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-Casino Night, spoilers through webisode #5 ("Someone in the Warehouse").

Jim is in the kitchen, pouring his second cup of coffee of the morning on what feels like his seventeenth bad day in a row, when Kevin comes in grinning.

"Hey, did you hear?" he says, coming up beside Jim. "Angela has a crush on Roy."

Jim blinks at him twice and sets the pot back on the burner. Kevin grins, looking very pleased.

" _Angela_ ," he says, nudging Jim with his elbow, "and _Roy_. Maybe they'll make out."

"Wow," says Jim, trying to find sweetener that isn't Splenda (thanks, Kelly). "Thanks for the heads up, Kev."

Kevin grins again.

"No problem."

**

Michael throws a surprise office wedding shower on a Thursday afternoon and doesn't even notify the party planning committee of his intentions.

"Oh, lighten up, Angela," he says, when she complains. "Angela Schmangela. No could do. In case you've forgotten, Miss Pamela here is _on_ the party planning committee." Pam has the good sense to look embarrassed, where she's standing next to Roy near reception. "Had to be covert ops. Me and Dwight only."

Dwight grins as Michael leans over Jim's desk to high-five him, but stops when he sees the look on her face. Honestly, she can't understand him at all sometimes.

"Hey, speaking of which," Michael says, "where's the you-know-what?" Dwight looks away from her this-is-unacceptable glare, back at Michael.

"The you-know-what?" he says.

"Yeah," Michael says, "you know, the, the stuff, the suppliiiiies?"

"Oh!" says Dwight and pulls an overly full paper bag from under his desk. It clinks when he sets it down on his blotter, and Michael chuckles, clapping his hands together.

"Here we go!" he says, pulling a bottle from the bag. "Cham-pahg-nay! Celebration juice!"

Angela huffs, turning away. There's no way they're going to get any more work done today, but Michael stops her before she finishes picking up her purse.

"Uh-uh-uh," he says. "No leaving. This is a mandatory par-tay. Even for par-tay poopers. That goes for everyone." He sweeps his finger in a circle around the room, including Stanley who's still on the phone, Jim whose chair is rolled back all the way to the wall between Michael's office and the conference room. He's staring with a fixed expression at the drink pouring operation Michael and Dwight have started on his desk with red plastic cups and Michael pauses when he points at him. "Ah, except for Jim," he says. "Exception made for Jim," he lowers his voice the slightest fraction, and nods knowingly at Jim. "Because of, the, um, the situation, with--" he jerks his head toward Pam. "You could, you know, leave, if this is gonna be weird..."

"No," says Jim loudly, shaking his head. "No, no, I'm fine." Pam is carefully looking at the carpet.

Angela sighs loudly and sits back down at her desk, glaring at Oscar and Kevin to make herself feel better.

Somehow Michael gets liquid in every cup, and co-opts Kelly and Phyllis into passing them around.

"No," says Angela, folding her arms, when Kelly comes up with one for her. She doesn't break her gaze and Kelly opens her mouth, closes it, and sets the cup down on her desk.

Over by Michael, Roy has his arm around Pam, who's giggling at something. He's wearing his work shirt, since Michael called him up from the warehouse, but the sleeves are rolled up, showing his arms, and his hair is still curly, his dimples still show when he smiles. Oscar and Kevin have gone over to mingle with people, and Angela picks up her cup when no one is looking. What's inside looks like off-color Sprite and smells disgusting. She takes a sip. Jesus _did_ drink wine, even if her church uses grape juice.

Angela has worked at Dunder Mifflin for four-and-a-half years; Roy has been there for just over three. Every week she cuts his paycheck along with all the others. When he and Pam had moved across town (Angela doesn't believe in unmarried couples living together), Pam tried to update his payroll address, but Angela told her only married couples could change each other's contact information. Pam rolled her eyes when she thought Angela wasn't looking, but Roy didn't seem to mind when he came up after work, bending over her desk to write the address out on a Post-It.

Once he held the door open for her. Once he picked her over Pam or Kelly, in front of everyone. Inappropriate, of course, but she thought about it later.

It's nothing to speak of, really. Your brain just gets used to going over the same thoughts, the same routines, so things seem more important than they are.

When Michael gets done with a long, rambling toast that mostly implies he's responsible for Pam and Roy's entire relationship, he holds up his cup, and everyone else follows suit.

"To Pam and Roy!" he says, and Angela doesn't repeat it before she drinks. She's looking to see if anyone's watching her, which is why she sees Jim leaning on the supply shelves in the far back, not saying anything either. He takes a long, hard drink from his cup, though, and then another, without looking up at anyone. Angela can tell what kind of party this is going to be. Typical.

After a while there's more alcohol, and then Roy is leaning against the end of Jim's desk, with Pam leaning back against him. Michael is telling them about a guy he knows who's in the diamond business and can get them a really sweet deal on a ring -- Pam keeps trying to explain that they already bought the rings -- and Dwight's still in his chair, laughing at all the wrong spots and not looking at her.

Angela can't work in this environment, so she gets up and goes back to the kitchen to get the other half of her Power Bar from lunch out of the refrigerator. Her cup is empty and when she stands up she sways just a little; it takes her a second to make sure she's aiming right when she throws it in the trash can by her desk.

Jim is sitting hunched over the table when she walks into the kitchen, but he sits up straighter when she comes in. She sees him trying to make a normal expression.

"Hi, Angela," he says, as she rummages in the refrigerator. She stands up and looks at him, as the door swings shut.

"This is ridiculous," she says. "What time is it?"

Jim looks at his watch carefully.

"It is 4:07," he says and she sighs. He looks at her expectantly as she stands there, creasing the edge of the foil Power Bar wrapper more firmly.

"You can sit down," he says after a minute, and she sighs again and sits in the chair next to him.

Angela doesn't really like Jim. Fun and games are all well and good in their own time -- she plays with her cats and crochets, after all -- but work is for working, not for goofing off and flirting and disrupting the entire office all the time. Although his invoices are all filled out correctly when he turns them in -- so really he has no excuse for not working well all the time.

Jim's back to being all hunched over, staring at the cup he's fiddling with. Angela can't see its contents, but she can guess.

She's never been pleased with either the size of their office or its layout. From her desk she can hear Oscar making dinner plans on his cell phone, or Kevin chuckling at some video on his computer, or Pam on the phone with her mother, talking about how Roy insisted she get the tires rotated on her car, about what kind of flowers she's going to have in her bouquet. If she gets up to go ask Toby to sign something, she can see Jim's face, listening too.

She can't feel that bad for him. He knew what he was getting into. But still.

"This was a stupid idea," she says, with enough vehemence that he looks up. She's looking down at the nutritional information on the wrapper in her hand, so she almost doesn't see his hand start to move. He pats her knee, cautiously, and when she doesn't react, lets his hand rest there, heavy and warm.

"Yeah," he says, still staring into his drink.

This is how Angela and Dwight first kissed: she came into work early, like usual, just in time to see Jan show up in broad daylight in a taxi to pick up her car. It was so shameless that Angela was still thinking about it when she walked into the office and almost ran right into Dwight, who was wearing only his underwear, socks and an undershirt, and folding a blanket by the couch.

"Oh!" he said, dropping his arms so the blanket was at waist level. "Oh, excuse me." He stood stiffly. "I was just... work business. I didn't know anyone would be here." Angela thought maybe he was mocking her, so she walked around him without saying anything, but he ducked out quickly and came back with all his clothes on and carefully didn't look at her for the rest of the day, so she knew he'd meant it. And it seemed like the appropriate way to react -- acknowledging her but not backing down.

She kept glancing over at him all day. Dwight was tall. Dwight had curly hair. She thought about kissing him and decided there was no use just thinking and thinking about something without doing anything about it, like Kelly and her crushes, Pam and the way she giggled when Jim had his hand on her arm. So she kissed Dwight in the hallway after work, when nobody was around -- just did it and nothing bad at all happened. Initially he looked stunned, yes, but a lot of good things have happened since, acceptable things. Angela is an adult, professional woman. She can make her own decisions.

Jim stops staring at his drink long enough to pick it up and toss back the rest of whatever's in there. His thumb is moving just a little, along the outside of her knee, like he doesn't even realize what he's doing. Jim's hair isn't curly, but he is tall, and he's wearing his suit jacket so he actually looks halfway respectable for once.

This is getting inappropriate, but outside the kitchen door somebody whoops, and Angela decides she doesn't care. Much. She doesn't know what's wrong with her lately; lust of the eye and lust of the flesh. It's a slippery slope.

"I agree," Angela says, and he looks over. "That planning a wedding at work is not an acceptable use of company time." Jim's face falls and he glances down, then back up. He makes a face that Angela knows is supposed to ask her not to talk about this.

"I have a boyfriend," she says, and she can tell from how he blinks that that's not what he was expecting.

"Um, okay?" he says, and she leans in and kisses him.

Jim doesn't kiss at all like Dwight -- none of the force or passion -- and when they stop his eyes are closed and he's breathing hard. Then he brings his other hand up to the back of her head and pulls her in again, kisses her with his eyes still closed. When they're done he turns away fast, so she only sees his face for a second.

"I'm gonna go," he says, standing, and his voice is almost steady. "Um. Are you, um. Okay?"

"Fine," says Angela, and he gives her a half-apologetic look before grabbing his bag from under the table and pushing out through the back door, around the corner to the emergency exit with the broken alarm.

On the refrigerator, right at Angela's eye level, is a wedding invitation for June 10th, Pam and Roy's names in glossy script, a white bow tied at the top. 'Till death do us part, is what they'll say. Angela pushes back her chair and walks out.


End file.
